Roland Park resident paying mind to mental illness

May 13--Just back from a national mental health conference in North Carolina and on her way to another mental health-related event in Baltimore, Kate Farinholt relaxed for a few hours at home in Roland Park on May 7.

She showed off daffodils, tulips and crape myrtle in her spacious yard, while her black retriever, Max, whined from inside the house.

"There are roses," Farinholt said apologetically. "They don't do so well."

It was a rare moment of down time in a whirlwind week for Farinholt, 61, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Maryland, a Columbia-based advocacy organization that calls itself "Maryland's voice on mental illness" and helps about 10,000 people a year.

NAMI Maryland is affiliated with NAMI, the national organization that was founded in 1979 in Madison, Wis., and is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization, according to its website.

Roland Park resident Kate Farinholt, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Maryland, which is sponsoring a 5K fundraising walk Saturday, speaks in her backyard on May 7th.

Roland Park resident Kate Farinholt, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Maryland, which is sponsoring a 5K fundraising walk Saturday, speaks in her backyard on May 7th.

Life for Farinholt is about to get even busier with Saturday's 14th annual NAMI Maryland 5K Walk, which is expected to draw as many as 3,000 people -- including Farinholt and Max -- to West Shore Park in the Inner Harbor to raise mental health awareness and money.

Last year's walk raised $220,000 and this year's goal is $300,000, which would be more than half of the organization's $561,000 annual budget.

Farinholt's focus on mental health is partly personal. She is the personal representative for her sister, of Govans, who was diagnosed as a child with paranoid schizophrenia.

Farinholt is glad for this week's attention to mental health. She said it still carries a stigma for many people and asked that her sister's name not be used.

"Anti-stigma and awareness advocacy is what the walk is all about," she said. "I believe we have a huge untapped market because everyone is affected by mental illness. This is an issue that affects us all."

The issue has come to the forefront in recent weeks, as Baltimore City coped with riots, national media coverage and Justice Department scrutiny related to the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody.

"There are families being left behind and feeling that they're left behind. There's a lot of trauma in those communities, based on life experiences," Farinholt said, citing poverty, violence and feelings of helplessness as examples. "Those are all things that can contribute to worsening mental health issues."

Exceeding expectations

NAMI nationally has been a leading voice for people with mental illness, said Dr. Steven Sharfstein, who is retiring this year as president and CEO of the Sheppard Pratt Health System, and was instrumental in nurturing the national NAMI organization in 1979. Sharfstein at the time was director of the division of mental health services for the National Institute of Mental Health, in Rockville, Md., and his division provided startup funding for the nascent NAMI.

"There was nothing like it in mental health," he said.

Sharfstein, who is also a former longtime board member of NAMI Maryland, said NAMI's advocacy efforts on issues such as insurance coverage parity for people with mental illness have made a big difference in the lives of millions.

"It's been a great success and exceeded my expectations," he said.

NAMI Maryland also provides educational resources and events, statewide outreach and training of volunteers.

For the second year in a row, NAMI Maryland co-sponsored an exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, featuring the work of artists with mental illness. Farinholt will be the keynote speaker when Rebecca Hoffberger, the museum's executive director receives an award -- also May 16, after the NAMI walk-- from the group Counselors Helping South Asian Indians. CHAI is honoring Hoffberger for her support of people living with mental illness.

"I have always been a friend of mental health," said Hoffberger, who met Farinholt through People Encouraging People, a Hampden-based behavioral health program that Farinholt's sister is in.

Hoffberger advocates "the most compassionate and broadest definition of a worthwhile life," and said she opposes the labeling of people as mentally ill.

Hoffberger will be joining the NAMI walk for the first time. She said she supports other local events, too, but "this one is close to my heart."

And she said, "I have the utmost respect for Kate. She does such a whole-hearted job."

NAMI Maryland's affiliates in Baltimore and 11 other jurisdictions offer free peer support, education and community outreach programs. NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore, where Farinholt used to be executive director, is the direct service provider for Baltimore City and Baltimore County. It serves 4,000 people a year and is based in the back of Govans Boundary United Methodist Church, but is moving soon to Stoneleigh, said its executive director, Sherry Welch.

Welch, a former consultant to NAMI Maryland, who became executive director of NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore last year, credits Farinholt with building up the statewide organization and the local chapter.

"Kate is the one who actually grew NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore," Welch said.

Welch is growing the chapter again, hoping to swell its numbers of clients from 4,000 to 5,000 by the year 2017, partly by offering community-based support groups for the families of people with mental illness, so they don't have to meet at the chapter's offices.

In fact, the chapter is moving to smaller digs in Stoneleigh, because, "We should be out in the community more," Welch said. "We want to circle the Beltway with NAMI support and programs."

Hearing voices

Farinholt said her younger sister's illness hit the family hard emotionally and financially when she was growing up in New Jersey. Before the diagnosis, "I was the shy one. She was happy and bubbly."

But her sister, at around age 10 or 11, began hearing voices and was hospitalized several times. Their father, a college professor, and mother, a writer, moved the family to a smaller house and then to Montgomery County, where Farinholt's sister participated for a while in a National Institutes of Heath study of the schizophrenia drug clozapine, but had to leave because of severe side effects that Farinholt said nearly killed her. She now lives "a full life" in a group home in Govans, Farinholt said.

Farinholt majored in art at Carleton College in Minnesota and earned a law degree from American University in Washington. She moved to Baltimore for a law job and became a volunteer and board member for what was then AMI-Baltimore. She also started a business designing clothes for children, and began selling them to Nordstrom's department stores before the business "got out of control" and "diminished," she said.

As she got more involved with the AMI-Baltimore group, she became its vice president and the president of the board, "which sort of made me the unpaid executive director."

Farinholt began piloting national programs, including a model for a family support group, a 10-session, peer-to-peer relapse prevention and recovery course, and an effort to train people living with mental illness to tell their stories publicly -- and to train others.

In 1998, the Baltimore affiliate raised $25,000 to hire Farinholt as executive director, and in 2010, she became director of NAMI Maryland.

She believes the organization still has its work cut out, because society is still uncomfortable talking about mental illness.

"People still feel in many communities that they can't tell their friends and neighbors," and are reluctant to seek services, she said.

"People take a long time to say, 'Oh, my God, I need to talk to somebody,'" she said. "The conversation is still informed by a lot of stigma."

But that's where NAMI and its related groups come in.

"There's an endless opportunity for growth," she said.

___

(c)2015 The Baltimore Sun

Visit The Baltimore Sun at www.baltimoresun.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.